Victor W. Sidel (7 July 1931-30 January 2018)

摘要

I first met Dr Victor W. Sidel in 1986 when he came to Queen's University where I was studying medicine. At that time I thought of Vic as remote, an unapproachable Great Man, a giant within the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. He was a performer, the man with the metronome set at a beat per second to signify the preventable death of a child every couple of seconds, as opposed to the tens of thousands of dollars spent each second, on the world militaries. Vic also employed another impressive demonstration to show the insanity of nuclear arms build-up, using what might be purchased at a hardware store-stainless steel bb balls or gun pellets and a metallic pail. He first dropped the bb balls into the pail to describe the firepower of Hiroshima (a single ball) and the conventional arms used in WWII (three balls); he then illustrated the world's nuclear stockpile by first dropping balls into the pail deliberately one by one, then at an ever increasing pace, so the noise became louder and louder until no other sound could be heard for what seemed like an eternity, almost filling the pail.This was replicated by many in IPPNW, including me. A decade later I saw another side of Vic through the eyes of a fellow young doctor, who had been mentored by him as a student, in an inner-city youth mentoring project, the Einstein Violence Prevention Project. The students universally found Vic extremely generous, without airs, always willing to give of his time.